This article appeared in Harvard Design Magazine, Summer 2001, Number 14. To order this issue or a sub- scription, visit the HDM homepage at .

© 2001 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College and The MIT Press. Not to be reproduced without the permission of the publisher

Canons in Crossfire

On the Importance of Critical , by Charles Jencks

THE IDEA THAT THERE IS A CANON of Tradition of literature that always is, paradoxically, needed asserting, upholding, and insisted upon by people who know reevaluating by those of supposedly perfectly well that there is no such superior sensibility.1 Harold Bloom re- thing. Neutral, abstract, and in some cently has defined a broader set of variant of the International Style, this great works in his defense of an em- great white canon causes mental snow- battled tradition, and he has given it a blindness, convincing people that a suitably definitive appellation, The single modernism exists—at the same Western Canon.2 time as they dismiss the idea as absurd. For Alfred H. Barr and the This contradiction, entrenched in the founders of the Museum of Modern architectural landscape, opens up im- Art, the canonic story of portant issues; but before pursuing led from Neo- through them, let us consider other fields to , the and where canons carry a bigger charge, Modern Architecture (capitalized, as for instance, religion, literature, and the gospel ought to be). This canonic Modern art. trajectory led directly to Abstract Art, For the Pope there are the canonic and it determined the arrangement of scriptures and doctrines that define works in the galleries of MoMA right Catholicism, and it falls to the Vati- into the 1980s. This canon also justi- can’s Congregation for the Doctrine of fied a view of history as aiming toward the Faith and its prefect, Cardinal abstraction as its goal, and, at the same Ratzinger, to define those canons. Suc- time, validated the major bloodline of cessor to the Inquisition, this Congre- Modern artists from Picasso through gation effectively shores up orthodoxy Jackson Pollock, a lineage sanctioned and expels those who deviate from the in the critical writings of Clement doctrinal line, such as the creative Greenberg. This orthodoxy lasted un- Catholics Matthew Fox and Hans til just last year, when the refurbish- Kung. For F.R. Leavis, and many liter- ment of MoMA—and of course of ary critics, there was a canonic Great Post-Modernism too—forced an en-

HARVARD DESIGN MAGAZINE 1 What Makes a Work Canonical? Canons in Crossfire tire reevaluation of the collection, at both a museum and radical, both “the ernists—exerted creative forces that which point a messy and interesting American canonization of something lasted far longer. Ludwig Mies van der set of plural categories led to a recon- that had been done,” the Establish- Rohe was a power to reckon with in ceptualization of the history of mod- ment, and adversarial? “Easy,” he an- the 1920s and 1960s. , ern art. The new groupings, swered with stunning pragmatic Frank , and Alvar Aalto, categorized by subject rather than his- nonchalance, “It succeeded. . . . You who with Mies made up the big four, torical period, varied in cogency, as can still have the paradox and fortu- were seminal for decades. And Louis did the similar new arrangement at the nately go on designing anyway you Kahn, James Stirling, Norman Foster, Tate Modern in London. (T his shift in like.” Canons are there to be affirmed Peter Eisenman, Frank Gehry, and canons is, of course, only a provisional and broken according to a logic no , the little six, each had attempt to contend with the challenge one understands. Modernism means two small periods of influence. But of pluralism. One looks forward to the both the triumph of corporate con- these protean characters, to stay rele- next, and more considered, synthesis.) formity and its constant overthrow, an vant and on top, also had to reinvent For Sigfried Giedion, as I was idea I would christen “Johnson’s Con- themselves every ten years or so. taught at Harvard in the 1960s, there fusion,” since he pointed it out so The notion that there is a “ten-year was a “New Tradition” of Modern ar- clearly.3 rule” of reinvention for the creative chitects that needed defending and Direct contradictions are no harder genius in the 20th century has been promoting (subtracted of Expression- for the High Church of Modernism well argued by the Harvard cognitive ists and others who did not fit within than they are for the Vatican. In fact, scientist Howard Gardner. In Creating the canon according to CIAM). For both thrive on them. We are back at Minds: An Anatomy of Creativity Seen Bruno Zevi, there was a similar great the paradox with which I started; but through the Lives of Freud, Einstein, Pi- tradition, but it culminated in the very before addressing it directly, I want to casso, Stravinsky, Eliot, Graham, and blisher architects Giedion had dismissed as rehearse the architecture of the last Gandhi, Gardner studies these major “transitory facts.” And so it went, and century and, with the aid of a diagram, Modernists, showing how they made so it goes. When I was a young histo- put forward the proposition that there breakthroughs or creatively shifted rian studying under Reyner Banham, I is also a tradition that bubbles away their thinking every ten years.5 In a re- wrote a paper, “History as Myth,” under the surface: critical modernism. cent book, Le Corbusier and the Contin- which showed how each successive Whereas canonic modernism today ual Revolution in Architecture, I have historian rewrote the script of mod- dominates the academies and institutes found the same pattern in this the ernism by putting back into the story of architecture, as well as the architec- Proteus of design. As the Hayward some of what the previous critic had ture of big-city downtowns, critical Gallery put it, polemically, in the title excised, only to perpetuate a new bias modernism is a creative avant-garde of a 1987 retrospective, Le Corbusier of his own. Banham was no exception always reloading its canons in response was the “Architect of the Century.”6 to the rule, as he enjoyed pointing out, to a perceived imbalance and, of Well, could this be possible—even be- and when once questioned on this course, a creative opportunity. fore the century was over and Frank process of historians’ one-upmanship Glance at the evolutionary tree of Gehry was given a shot at the title? I and asked how to explain it, he said, the 20th century that I have construct- think the answer is “yes,” as I argue at “apostolic succession.” Modern archi- ed around six underlying traditions.4 length and as the diagram shows. Le tectural historians, like defenders of Clearly, the main narrative does not Corbusier appears on this chart at five the True Faith, were people of the belong to any building type, move- points: as the seminal designer of the book; they passed on beliefs by study- ment, or individual. It quickly dismiss- “Heroic Period” of the 1920s; as a ing and worshipping in the same es any idea of a single canon—white, forceful thinker of a new (and rather church. machine aesthetic, abstract, or mini- unfortunate) urbanism; as the leader of The delicious irony of this situation malist. Rather, it displays a competi- CIAM and the movement to design was inescapable, for the tradition be- tive drama, a dynamic and turbulent mass housing after the war; as a har- ing canonized was purportedly based flow of ideas, social movements, tech- binger of Post-Modernism with the on revolution; one has to remember nical forces, and individuals, all jock- church at Ronchamp and the symbolic hard what modernism once claimed to eying for position. A movement or an architecture of Chandigarh; and, at the be: avant-garde, revolutionary, new, individual may be momentarily in the end of his life, as a forerunner of idealistic, utopian. The idea of being public eye and enjoy media power, but High-Tech, with his pavilions in Brus- radical and progressive and shocking such notoriety rarely lasts more than sels and Zürich. No other architect carried modernism throughout the five years and usually not more than was so creative in so many different 19th century and up to the 1930s. two. It is true that certain architects of traditions. Not for nothing was he How, I once asked , the previous century—how strange seen as “the Picasso of architecture”;

could the Museum of Modern Art be those words ring for Old Mod- and importantly for my argument, the of Harvard the President and Fellows © 2001 by College and The MIT Press. Not to be reproduced without the permission of the pu

2 HARVARD DESIGN MAGAZINE SUMMER 2001 What Makes a Work Canonical? Canons in Crossfire seminal buildings of each of his cre- there are few women. An urbanism tortions. If not wholly inclusive it is, at ative periods expressed different both more feminine and also more co- least, balanced in its selective effects. canons. (Many critics and architects, herent would have been far superior to As can be seen in the classifiers on the including Nikolaus Pevsner and James the characteristically masculine, over- far left of the diagram, the tree is Stirling, were upset when Ronchamp, rationalized, and badly related boxes based on the assumption that there are with its primitive expression, seemed that have marred our cities. For anoth- coherent traditions that tend to self- to deny Le Corbusier’s devotion to the er thing, continual revolution, or the organize around underlying structures. Machine Aesthetic.) There was no sin- constant change of fashion, business Often opposed to each other psycho- gle “Modern Architecture” to which cycles, technical innovations, and so- logically and culturally, these deep he was faithful—only, perhaps, the ba- cial transformations, has meant that structures act like what are called, in sic principle of being critical and cre- most architecture, like most produc- the esoteric science of nonlinear dy- ative. tion in the other arts, has lacked the namics, “attractor basins.” They at- But the point of my argument is depth and perfection possible in earli- tract architects to one line of slightly different than Howard Gard- er centuries. It is hard to master an art development rather than to another. ner’s. While agreeing with his analysis, while surfing the waves of “what’s Why? Not only because of taste, train- I think that one of the important rea- next.” Nonetheless, that is what the ing, education, and friendships, but sons for the demonic creativity of his past century has been, a constant mo- also because of typecasting and of how seven “geniuses” is that the last centu- tion of whirls and eddies. My diagram the market encourages—almost ry was uncommonly turbulent. My di- shows about 100 trends and technical forces—architects to have an identifi- able style and skill—in a word, to spe- Neutral, abstract, and in some variant of the International cialize. Style, the great white canon causes mental snow-blindness, Of course, architects dislike being blisher pigeonholed as much as do politicians convincing people that a single modernism exists—at the and writers—they too like to claim same time as they dismiss the idea as absurd. universality, freedom, and openness. But it is the rare architect, such as Le agram, with its tortuous blobs, is forces, and sixty movements, many of Corbusier or Gehry, who can be found meant to capture this condition of them “isms”—like , Purism, in different traditions, and often such continual revolution. At any one time, , Brutalism, or Metabo- an architect is pilloried for abandoning the 20th-century architect has had to lism—that became “was-isms.” Riding one set of canonical beliefs for anoth- face three or four competing move- these waves as a leader is exhilarating, er. Enough forces conspire to keep ar- ments of architecture and respond to until inevitably the neo-follower surfs chitects “on message,” even when they broad changes in technology, social on by. seek, like Post-Modernists, to be plu- forces, style, and ideology—not to I don’t mean to be disparaging so ralists. mention world wars and such large much as realistic. The 20th century impersonal realities as the rise of the produced great architecture but, as SURPRISES internet and digital media. It was an Lewis Mumford often noted, great ar- What tales does this turbulent blob- exhausting century. As the Chinese chitecture that had great faults. A crit- diagram tell? In crude terms, it reveals proverb puts it: May you be cursed to ical modernism acknowledges these several unlikely points. Most architec- live in interesting times. To keep at the problems, faces the horrors as much as ture—80 percent?—is by non-archi- top of the profession, or at least stay the triumphs, and responds to them tects, or at least is the result of larger influential, an architect has had to rev- dialectically. Critical modernism is processes that are, artistically speak- olutionize his ideas about every ten modernism critical of itself. ing, “unself-conscious”: building regu- years. In other words, the impetus for When historians look at the past, lations, governmental acts, the creativity comes from without as much they typically do so with eyes carefully vernacular tradition, planning laws, as from within. focused on a few canons, and these mass housing, the malling of the sub- But no matter how beneficent this conceptual glasses can rigidly exclude urbs, and inventions in the technical/ perpetual upheaval and reinvention the variety, contradictions, mess, and industrial sphere. Le Corbusier in the may have been for architecture, it has creative wealth of a period. Further- 1920s, Russian disurbanists in the not been good for the environment. more, as readers we often appreciate 1930s, and Richard Rogers today For one thing, the ideas being con- and applaud them for their myopia. All (working with Tony Blair) try stantly reinvented have been his history writing is selective, and while to affect this inchoate area, but it is, ideas—men have dominated the revo- there is no way around this, I have de- like globalization, mostly beyond any- lutionary period; among the 400 pro- vised the evolutionary tree precisely to one’s control. This high proportion of

tean creators gathered in my diagram, compensate for the perspectival dis- nonarchitectural creativity is likely to of Harvard the President and Fellows © 2001 by College and The MIT Press. Not to be reproduced without the permission of the pu

3 HARVARD DESIGN MAGAZINE SUMMER 2001 What Makes a Work Canonical? Canons in Crossfire lessen in the future as more and more or the fundamental of Gun- and the harm it does to the environ- of the environment is guided by gov- nar Asplund. When the Fascists in ment. Too often and easily, we term ernmental and planning control, re- Italy and Spain and the leaders of Nazi both the larger corporate modernism sponding to economic and ecological Germany and Stalinist Russia imposed and the reactions to it “modernist,” forces. But the ironic truth remains their versions of classicism as a state without much reflection on the glaring that, in terms of control and mega- style, contending approaches were contradiction inherent in this confu- planning, the Disney Corporation has quashed. The diaspora of Modern ar- sion. been more effective than the former chitects and the waning of other ap- The evolutionary tree also shows ; of course, architectural- proaches are clear from the diagram. how the mainstream is constantly at- ly speaking, its results have been un- Like evolutionary species whose habi- tracted back to stripped classicism or self-conscious vernacular pastiche, all tat is destroyed, the Modernists be- degree-zero modernism. Although too consciously applied. came virtually extinct—or else they they are all very different, Lincoln Another surprise emerging from emigrated from Europe and the Center in New York and twenty other the diagram is that a polemical move- USSR. cultural centers in America during the ment may not be the preserve of just Influenced by social geographers 1960s are in this bloodline, as is the one tradition. One would have such as David Harvey and Jeffrey Modern Classicism of Robert A.M. thought the ecological imperative Herf, I have called these classical or Stern and Demetri Porphyrios. The might have been monopolized by the monumental folk architects “Reac- corporate modernism of Renzo Piano Activist tradition, but it has been taken tionary Modernists.”8 Like Albert in Berlin, and even Richard Meier at up by all the traditions in different Speer, they were just as wedded to the Getty, is not too far away from this ways. For instance, the classicists, fol- technology, economic progress, in- “strange attractor.” Why? The institu- lowing Leon Krier, have created an strumental reason, and the zeitgeist as tional forces of production and pa- blisher ecological movement they have chris- Mies, Le Corbusier, and Gropius. The tronage favor an impersonal, abstract, tened with the contentious brand fact that they persecuted functionalists semiclassical sobriety. In Giedion’s “New Urbanism.” New Urbanism is and creative modernists, and adopted view, the “ruling taste” is usually based on the tight village planning of a reactionary styles and attitudes, has pulled towards this attractor basin, previous era, and its green credentials obscured the deeper point that they even if today the idea might have giv- are presented with historicist wrap- shared the Modernists’ assumptions en him pause for thought. pers. Then there are Post-Modern versions of green architecture, includ- All history writing is selective, and while there is no way ing work by SITE, Ralph Erskine, and around this, I have devised the evolutionary tree precisely to Lucien Kroll; High-Tech versions usu- ally called Eco-Tech (or Organi-Tech); compensate for the perspectival distortions. If not wholly and the Biomorphic versions of the inclusive it is, at least, balanced in its selective effects. Malaysian Ken Yeang. And there is the madly optimistic corporate-govern- about power, mass culture, and mass But this tendency of the “ruling mental version of the Sustainability production. They all were, in effect, taste” toward self-conscious tradition- Movement led by Amory Lovins. His disputing some common territory, a alism and now corporate modernism is notion is summarized in the oxymoron point that the diagram reveals, espe- inherent in critical modernism, which “Natural Capitalism,” which suggests cially when modernism triumphs after always reacts against the dominant. that nature and capitalism can walk the Second World War. Consider Le Corbusier himself in the hand-in-hand in the 21st century.7 My The true inheritors of the postwar 1960s, at the height of his fame, when point is that, counter to intuition and mainstream were the big corporate he was bitterly fighting the destruction previous issue-based movements, modernists, and they have been so of Paris by grandiose modernist proj- green architecture comes in all styles ever since. They appear small in my ects, such as Bernard Zehrfuss’s big and traditions. diagram because their creativity has dumb dome in La Defense. Or, as he A third surprise is that we can see not been that significant. In terms of fulminated somewhat earlier, “In 1956 strange alliances within the self-con- volume of work, however, they have L-C was asked to accept membership scious tradition, usually the main- greatly overshadowed the four other of the Institut de France (Academie stream, or what Sigfried Giedion conscious traditions. This begins to des Beaux Arts) in Paris: ‘Thank you, damned as the “ruling style” of archi- explain the paradox with which I start- never!’ . . . My name would serve as a tecture. Through the 1940s, this style ed. Modernism does indeed exist as banner to conceal the present evolu- was mostly a version of classicism: Ed- the mainstream, a corporate one, but tion of the Ecole des Beaux Arts to- wardian , Beaux-Arts Classi- the more creative movements that wards a superficial modernism.”9 Le

cism, monumental stripped classicism, contest it are critical of this dominance Corbusier’s outburst is a good example of Harvard the President and Fellows © 2001 by College and The MIT Press. Not to be reproduced without the permission of the pu

4 HARVARD DESIGN MAGAZINE SUMMER 2001 What Makes a Work Canonical? Canons in Crossfire

of what I mean by critical modernism century architects would allow them- Frampton, and Johnson are happy to as a constant, underground contradic- selves—to innovate at all levels. Depth commit—more difficult, or at least un- tory force; but, unfortunately, his ex- requires time, and since, in the mar- comfortable. Canons contest other ample was not heeded, and “superficial ketplace, time is money, depth is in canons, and critical modernism is the modernism” has been dominant ever short supply. Gaudí’s architecture ex- dialectical response of one set of be- since. ploits all sorts of new structural liefs toward another that has become Yet mainstream culture is not al- types—such as the hyperbolic parabo- too stereotyped, too powerful. In this ways located on this axis. Several im- loid—if not for the very first time, sense, like and Post- portant exceptions occurred when then for the first time in a seminal Modernism, Critical Modernism is Expressionism, the Bauhaus, and the way. He makes diverse form-types his simply modernism critical of its own Heroic Period dominated for a few own by giving them forceful and poet- excesses. years in the 1920s, or when Post- ic expression. Moreover, he bends I realize, however, that the did in the early 1980s, or structural rationalism to expressive placement of Gaudí is a contentious and National Romanti- ends. For instance, while the Italian claim that needs much more defense cism did at the start of the century. engineer Pier Luigi Nervi makes an than I can offer here. Those who value Hector Guimard in Paris, Victor Hor- ordered art from showing the isostatic the perfecting of architectural tech- ta in Belgium, Charles Rennie Mack- lines of force in his concrete ceilings— nique might proffer Mies, Kahn, or intosh in Glasgow, Eliel Saarinen and for instance, in the Palazzo del Lavoro Norman Foster as canonic architects Lars Sonck in , Otto Wagner in Turin—Gaudí takes the same forces of the century. Those who value theo- in Vienna, and my favorite architect, and expresses them dynamically, push- ry and education might favor Gropius Antonio Gaudí, in Barcelona—all be- ing against each other, like the strain- at the Bauhaus or Eisenman because of

came momentary leaders of a major ing muscles of an athlete. Concrete his design and writing; those who pre- blisher public architecture, if only for a few becomes animated, humorous, related fer an understated humanism might years and in a few cities. to our body and moods. Beyond this, put Aalto in this role. And what about in buildings such as the Casa Batllo, he contenders for “the little six,” what GAUDÍ uses technological and structural inno- about Lutyens, Asplund, Fuller, My bias shows through the evolution- vations for symbolic and political Niemeyer, Rogers, and Piano—or an- ary tree at one point. Nikolaus Pevs- ends—to present the sufferings of the other set? Many contenders for the ner dismissed most of the movements Catalans under the dragon of Castile. top positions are apparent in the cited just above as “transitory fash- His structural and material inventions weighting I have given the 400 “best” ions,” and for Sigfried Giedion, except are always means to a larger intention, architects, and they each presume dif- for the Heroic Period, they were not and it is this overall meaning that gives ferent canons. “constituent facts.” One remembers Gaudí’s work enormous symbolic Let me reiterate the main specula- how modernist historians, like revi- depth. It communicates up and down tion, or hypothesis—critical mod- sionist apparatchiks airbrushing Trot- the scales, from the everyday and local ernism is radically dispersed sky out of photographs, liked to clean to the cosmic. By comparison, the throughout the many modern move- up uncomfortable facts. Interpretation work of Mies and Aalto seems to me ments that exist and react to each oth- and judgment distort all historical se- too abstract, that of Le Corbusier and er and to the outside world. It is lection. My argument for placing An- Wright too cut off from the language distributed in many places and exists tonio Gaudí as the architect of the of the street, that of Eisenman too in many architects, if for only a short century, on a par with Le Corbusier, cerebral, that of Gehry too formalist. time, for critical modernism is a does not rest on his influence, city To argue that Gaudí was the canon- process of learning through absorbing planning, or theoretical contribution. ic architect of the century, however, and criticizing other modernists. Rather, it rests on his creative bril- reveals my partiality towards artistic Moreover, what matters most is the liance in turning city building and and symbolic architecture, values that pattern of these positions taken suc- structure into a high art. No other ar- other critics, such as Kenneth Framp- cessively and the space of creativity chitect managed to get craftsmen, ton, do not necessarily share. In an Art they open up. One can say that the artists, and even patrons working to- Net lecture of 1974, I was shocked to wisdom of architecture always out- gether on such a large and complete hear this historian dismiss Gaudí’s strips that of any single architect, and scale. His works remain the standard work as kitsch—but then Philip John- that there is a beautiful, if messy, pat- for the integration of all the arts at the son used to dismiss Frank Lloyd tern to this history that my diagram highest creative and symbolic level. Wright as the “greatest architect of seeks to reveal. Yes, history is, as Win- The reason his work has such cre- the 19th century.” The evolutionary ston Churchill said, “just one crazy ative depth is that he took a long tree is meant to make such dis- thing after another”—it is like a drunk

time—the kind of time that few 20th- missals—ones that Pevsner, Giedion, wandering aimlessly. But occasionally of Harvard the President and Fellows © 2001 by College and The MIT Press. Not to be reproduced without the permission of the pu

5 HARVARD DESIGN MAGAZINE SUMMER 2001 What Makes a Work Canonical? Canons in Crossfire

the drunk learns something and makes up.” Reconciling these opposed forces will take progress, just as the proto-Modern more than a pose; it will take a raft of tax incen- Movement of the 19th century had tives and other changes that the new president hoped. The problem comes when we George W. Bush is unlikely to accept. confuse the mainstream with the criti- 8. See, for instance, Jeffrey Herf, Reactionary cal, the white abstract style with the Modernism: Technology, Culture, and Politics in creative dialectic, just because they Weimar and the Third Reich (Cambridge: Cam- both have good claims on the word bridge University Press, 1984). “Modern.” Those claims are socially 9. Le Corbusier, My Work, trans. James Palmes, and historically embedded, and deeply introduction by Maurice Jardot (London, entrenched. They will not go away, so 1960), 49–52. one can predict that Johnson’s Confu- sion, and ours, will extend into the fu- ture. But that is no reason to turn it Charles Jencks is the author of many books, into a theory of history and fail to dis- including, most recently, Le Corbusier: The criminate, especially since a canon Continual Revolution in Architecture. must aim well.

Acknowledgment Those who have offered me helpful suggestions for this paper include Dennis Sharp, Peter Dav- ey, Ivor Richards, and Geoffrey Broadbent. blisher

Notes 1. See, for instance, F.R. Leavis, The Great Tra- dition: George Eliot, Henry James, (London: Chatto & Windus, 1948). 2. Harold Bloom, The Western Canon: The Books and School of the Ages (New York: Harcourt Brace, 1994). 3. “History as Myth” appears in Meaning in Ar- chitecture (London: Barrie & Rockliff, 1969) and “Dialogues with Philip Johnson” in The New Moderns (London: Academy Editions, 1990). 4. The evolutionary tree is further described in my Le Corbusier: The Continual Revolution in Ar- chitecture (New York: Monacelli Press, 2001). 5. Howard Gardner, Creating Minds: An Anato- my of Creativity Seen through the Lives of Freud, Einstein, Picasso, Stravinsky, Eliot, Graham and Gandhi (New York: Basic Books, 1993). 6. The Hayward’s retrospective is published in Le Corbusier, Architect of the Century (London: Arts Council of Great Britain, 1987). 7. Countering stereotypes, Lovins argues that, with enough efficiency, economic development and ecological growth can occur at the same time—and at four times their current rate! Nat- ural Capitalism or wishful thinking? It is no surprise that former president Bill Clinton and various business leaders have applauded Lovins’s message. The trick, Lovins points out, is that we have to rethink all systems from the start. But as Oscar Wilde put it: “Be-

ing natural is such a very difficult pose to keep of Harvard the President and Fellows © 2001 by College and The MIT Press. Not to be reproduced without the permission of the pu

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